Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
Speaker 1: the world, it is so great to have you here.
Speaker 1: Back for another episode as we, of course break down
Speaker 1: the psychology of our twenties. How many times have you
Speaker 1: heard the phrase just trust your gut, go with your instinct,
Speaker 1: or when you know you just know. When we hear
Speaker 1: those phrases in response to a situation where we really
Speaker 1: just need advice, we're feeling uncertain, it can make the
Speaker 1: situation feel even more confusing, especially if you are someone
Speaker 1: who's naturally anxious, because feelings of anxiety and a gut
Speaker 1: instinct often feel completely similar and are incredibly hard to differentiate.
Speaker 1: Self doubt, intuition, generalized anxiety, even excitement. They all feel
Speaker 1: the same, They all operate on the same axis. So
Speaker 1: how can we sure that we are making the right choices,
Speaker 1: that we are choosing the right path, questioning the right
Speaker 1: things when we can't always tell what to focus on
Speaker 1: and what to ignore. Well, today that is exactly what
Speaker 1: we are talking about. We are going to talk about
Speaker 1: how to distinguish between intuition and anxiety. And let me
Speaker 1: tell you, I think it is so important to have
Speaker 1: this conversation in our twenties because there are so many
Speaker 1: big life decisions to be made during this decade, and
Speaker 1: so much insecurity and doubt in general. And if we
Speaker 1: let ourselves be led by fear, thinking that an emotion
Speaker 1: that powerful must be a sign, fear must be a sign,
Speaker 1: I don't think that we give ourselves the lives that
Speaker 1: we want, and fear in these situations or anxiety cannot
Speaker 1: be the master of our fate or the master of
Speaker 1: our destiny, or whatever you want to call it. Knowing
Speaker 1: the difference between my gut instinct and my fear, it
Speaker 1: has been a process of trial and error for me.
Speaker 1: I used to be such a back and forth kind
Speaker 1: of person. I would constantly need other people's input. I
Speaker 1: would take a leap of faith, and then I would
Speaker 1: back down because I began to doubt my own instincts.
Speaker 1: But around three years ago, I think I experienced just
Speaker 1: this huge mental shift in general across all areas of
Speaker 1: my life. And around that time I basically decided that
Speaker 1: for three months I was just going to go with
Speaker 1: whatever thing I had decided to do first, so whether
Speaker 1: it was what restaurant to pick, what movie to watch,
Speaker 1: what person to date. I had to be decisive, and
Speaker 1: I had to base it on my first thought and
Speaker 1: my first decision, and I definitely got things wrong during
Speaker 1: that period, but I think I came out of it
Speaker 1: with such a strong inner voice. And there have been
Speaker 1: so many times where I have really not trusted my
Speaker 1: inner voice and been disappointed, And every single time I
Speaker 1: have been, it's almost been reaffirming to me when like
Speaker 1: what that sounds like when it's an instinct, When it's
Speaker 1: my intuition and it's so loudly calling me and I
Speaker 1: ignore it, it feels terrible, but it also just helps me
Speaker 1: again reinforce what that voice means to me and when
Speaker 1: to listen to it. Now. Don't get me wrong, I
Speaker 1: still experience anxiety when it comes to my decisions, but
Speaker 1: I think I can now really sit back and appreciate
Speaker 1: it and have a conversation with my anxiety almost rather
Speaker 1: than allowing it to dictate what I do in life.
Speaker 1: When we confuse intuition and anxiety, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of things can happen. We can become very obsessive over
Speaker 1: particular thoughts that are unhelpful because we think they mean
Speaker 1: more than they do, when really they are just thoughts.
Speaker 1: We can make decisions because we're panicked that actually end
Speaker 1: up being one that we regret. We leave someone we shouldn't,
Speaker 1: we turn away from an opportunity we shouldn't, we quit
Speaker 1: when we shouldn't, or we don't make decisions that we
Speaker 1: need to make because we think how anxiety is trying
Speaker 1: to tell us something, when really, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: it's just trying to keep us small, and it's also
Speaker 1: trying to keep us safe in a way. These are
Speaker 1: the mistakes that I want us to make less of.
Speaker 1: And the thing I'm most excited for in this episode
Speaker 1: is this questionnaire slash checklist that I have that I
Speaker 1: use for myself for judging whether a thought I'm having
Speaker 1: is an anxious thought or an intuitive guide or an
Speaker 1: intuitive signal. And it's literally one that you could take.
Speaker 1: You can bring any question, any thought you're having, and
Speaker 1: you could apply it and put it through this framework
Speaker 1: and you would have your answer. Is this a thought
Speaker 1: I should listen to? Is it coming from an anxious
Speaker 1: place or an intuitive place? I also want to talk
Speaker 1: about how intuition and anxiety feel in our bodies and
Speaker 1: in our minds, why they're similar, how they're different, when
Speaker 1: to know the difference, and more most importantly, I think,
Speaker 1: how to truly strengthen our intuition, how to make sure
Speaker 1: that it is a voice that we hear over the
Speaker 1: voices of our fear, but also over the voices of
Speaker 1: a lot of other people who have opinions about our lives,
Speaker 1: as they always will. So there was definitely a time
Speaker 1: that I needed this episode myself. Maybe I still need it,
Speaker 1: but now I get the chance to make it for
Speaker 1: you all. So I hope you learn something. I hope
Speaker 1: it makes you recognize something about yourself. I hope it
Speaker 1: quells some of your anxiety. So, without further ado, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the distinction between intuition and anxiety and how
Speaker 1: to tell the difference. So let's begin by breaking down
Speaker 1: how each of these feelings sensations, how they each work.
Speaker 1: What is anxiety based in and what is into wi
Speaker 1: based in. We're going to start with the louder and
Speaker 1: more persistent or arrogant of the two. We're gonna start
Speaker 1: with anxiety. Anxiety put simply, is our means to survive.
Speaker 1: It is the alarm system that is meant to protect
Speaker 1: us against danger by triggering our fight or flight system. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: this has also been adapted to include fawn and freeze. Basically,
Speaker 1: anxiety is the first responder, and they see the incoming
Speaker 1: danger and they call back to the rest of the
Speaker 1: body and say, are we going to run? Are we
Speaker 1: going to fight? Are we gonna stay still? Are we
Speaker 1: going to make friends? Sometimes I think we often villainize
Speaker 1: anxiety because you know, it is pretty terrible for it
Speaker 1: to be this constant voice in our head, But it
Speaker 1: actually is really essential and it does allow us to
Speaker 1: see our surroundings properly. It does allow us to be safe.
Speaker 1: It is an essential part of who we are. When
Speaker 1: it becomes a proper though, is when it starts getting
Speaker 1: fanatical and making up stranger and stranger scenarios that aren't
Speaker 1: actually happening, but convincing us that either they will happen
Speaker 1: or they are happening. So this is known as a
Speaker 1: disordered anxiety response. Now, there is a way we should
Speaker 1: experience anxiety. Anxiety can be situation or event based. It
Speaker 1: can be limited both in terms of intensity and frequency.
Speaker 1: It is important for our protection. And then there is
Speaker 1: a way that becomes unsustainable and mentally harmful, and that
Speaker 1: is when anxiety becomes constant. We are unable to switch off,
Speaker 1: and it emerges even when nothing is wrong. So if
Speaker 1: you've ever been sitting on the couch and you're sitting
Speaker 1: there and your whole life genuinely feels perfect in that moment,
Speaker 1: there is nothing scary happening around you, and yet you're
Speaker 1: sitting there almost being like something's wrong. Something's wrong. I
Speaker 1: can feel it, I know it. You feel uncertain, you
Speaker 1: feel scared, and you cannot release that feeling. That is
Speaker 1: disordered anxiety, and it basically turns us into a bunch
Speaker 1: of conspiracy theorists. We may, you know, look at a
Speaker 1: relationship that seems perfectly normal and think, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they're gonna break up with me, even though there are
Speaker 1: no signs of that. Or we think that person is
Speaker 1: so mad at me, or I'm going to lose my job,
Speaker 1: some big disaster is about to happen, the worst case
Speaker 1: scenario is about to happen. Even when we have no
Speaker 1: single piece of evidence for those thoughts or scenarios, we
Speaker 1: end up spiraling, We end up feeling very panicked. There
Speaker 1: is this desire to do something, this desire to act
Speaker 1: the sense of uneasiness. We also start to think that
Speaker 1: this feeling, because it is so significant, it must mean something.
Speaker 1: Because it is so so loud, it is so hard
Speaker 1: to dismiss. And the thing is is that your anxiety
Speaker 1: is meant to be loud. Anxiety is not meant to
Speaker 1: be quiet. Our it was basically made. It was evolved
Speaker 1: so that it was hard to ignore because we needed
Speaker 1: to listen to it for it to be useful, because
Speaker 1: it was meant to tell us something important. But because
Speaker 1: it is so intense, it feels like everything that it
Speaker 1: is telling us must be coming true, and it will
Speaker 1: come true, and we need to be prepared, and we
Speaker 1: better be listening to every single tiny piece of thing
Speaker 1: it tells us, even when it's a lie. Now here's
Speaker 1: the thing about anxiety that I was talking to a
Speaker 1: friend about this the other day, which is that even
Speaker 1: the saying goes that even a wrong clock is right
Speaker 1: twice a day. So your anxiety is ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of the time going to be wrong about a situation
Speaker 1: or a scenario you're in, and then almost by accident,
Speaker 1: sometimes it will be right. And those are the moments
Speaker 1: we need to watch out for, because we begin to
Speaker 1: take it as evidence, even though they are so so rare.
Speaker 1: We take it as evidence that these feelings we have,
Speaker 1: which is just simply an overreactive olympic system and our
Speaker 1: brain trying to interpret the environment, we take it as
Speaker 1: a sign. And then other times our anxiety actually creates
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling prophecy, which is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: we confuse it with intuition. So I'm going to use
Speaker 1: the example again of you think that a friend is
Speaker 1: mad at you. You think that's your intuition. It's actually
Speaker 1: just your anxiety. But because you believe that they are
Speaker 1: mad at you, it begins to inform your behavior. So
Speaker 1: you become distant, you become cold, you begin to ignore
Speaker 1: them as a protective mechanism, and suddenly there is a
Speaker 1: problem and you're sitting there going I told you so, Look,
Speaker 1: my anxiety was right, It was actually intuition, when really
Speaker 1: what was happening was this irrational feeling has created this
Speaker 1: behave you subconsciously. So about thirty percent of us are
Speaker 1: going to experience an anxiety disorder in our lives. And
Speaker 1: like the example I just gave, it does shape our behaviors,
Speaker 1: our actions, and our thoughts. It is such a good liar.
Speaker 1: Our anxiety is such a good liar. But it's also
Speaker 1: the part of us that is so vulnerable and genuinely afraid.
Speaker 1: I always think about anxiety as like a parent who
Speaker 1: tries to shelter their child from the world and tells
Speaker 1: their child lies, like you know, the sun is poisonous,
Speaker 1: or other people are evil, or these people are the
Speaker 1: embodiment of satan, like you know when you watch those
Speaker 1: weird cult documentaries and the parent carry for example, like
Speaker 1: the parent has told them something about themselves, not because
Speaker 1: they hate them, but to protect them because of their
Speaker 1: own trauma. That's literally how I think about anxiety. This
Speaker 1: actually brings up an important point, which is the relationship
Speaker 1: between anxiety and trauma, because we cannot talk about anxiety
Speaker 1: and the confusion between anxiety and intuition without talking about trauma.
Speaker 1: So in meta analysis from twenty twenty four, it looked
Speaker 1: at over a thousand studies and papers written on this topic.
Speaker 1: Within these papers, there were almost twenty five thousand combined participants,
Speaker 1: and it found that PTSD makes us more anxiety sensitive.
Speaker 1: Our anxiety response is deeply informed by our past and
Speaker 1: the things that have caused us extreme pain and hurt
Speaker 1: and trauma is just going to scramble the parts of
Speaker 1: our brain that can think rationally about something. Because if
Speaker 1: you've been through something really terrible, give be it relationship trauma,
Speaker 1: family trauma, childhood trauma, even like a natural disaster, anything
Speaker 1: like that, Basically that has almost rewired how your brain
Speaker 1: sees threats and how it sees information. Because you survived that,
Speaker 1: your brain is now almost locked in on those memories
Speaker 1: and believes that those memories are useful. So the things
Speaker 1: that you saw right before I don't know, the boat
Speaker 1: sunk or right before the relationship exploded, your brain has
Speaker 1: still got those in storage and is going to bring
Speaker 1: them out and use them as almost like a tester
Speaker 1: for what you know that experience would look like in
Speaker 1: the future, how do we avoid it? Essentially, I feel
Speaker 1: like that just I just rambled there and that maybe
Speaker 1: didn't make any sense. I just like to give the
Speaker 1: example of being afraid of flying right and having experienced
Speaker 1: or traumatic flying a bit that has happened to me.
Speaker 1: I had a really traumatic flight once. It was just
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to go into details, but it
Speaker 1: was just so awful. It was so awful. People were crying,
Speaker 1: people were screaming. It was genuinely traumatic. It may have
Speaker 1: not led to PTSD, but what it did lead to
Speaker 1: was a heightened anxiety response in relation to flying. And
Speaker 1: because I went through that, my brain is now so
Speaker 1: hyper aware of how scary that felt that anytime I
Speaker 1: get on a plane, I'm thinking, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: twinge in my stomach, that's a sign, because I felt
Speaker 1: anxious when I thought the plane was crashing, And so
Speaker 1: this new feeling must be This same feeling that is
Speaker 1: actually just a natural response to an unknown must be
Speaker 1: telling me something. This is all to say, Obviously, anxiety
Speaker 1: is going to feel a lot like a sign sometimes
Speaker 1: because it is loud, because it is sometimes linked to
Speaker 1: very emotional, heightened situations, and because it's fear based and
Speaker 1: we are naturally prone to listen to fear. Okay, now
Speaker 1: we really need to discuss intuition. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear like a full debrief on anxiety, you can listen
Speaker 1: to I think it's episode thirty one on the Anxious Mind.
Speaker 1: But now it's important to distinguish between anxiety and intuition. Here.
Speaker 1: Intuition is something that is is sometimes lumped in with
Speaker 1: a bunch of other concepts, our paranoia, cognitive biases, emotional thinking, anxiety,
Speaker 1: of course, a got instinct out in a voice, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, whatever people confuse it as. Basically,
Speaker 1: intuition describes the way that we can just sense that
Speaker 1: something is not quite right without needing rational proof in
Speaker 1: that moment. It is this strange ability to pick up
Speaker 1: on cues from another person or our environment, or from
Speaker 1: our senses that is telling us something that might not
Speaker 1: be something we can admit to ourselves or we can
Speaker 1: say out loud, but we can feel it. So I
Speaker 1: found this really amazing article that kind of brought broke
Speaker 1: down the four types of intuition. So there's clairvoyance, which
Speaker 1: is kind of almost having visions or seeing images of
Speaker 1: something that's about to happen, honestly, quite spiritual, very rare.
Speaker 1: There's clear sentience, which is like a gut reaction that
Speaker 1: could include feeling really intense bodily sensations or feelings. There's
Speaker 1: clear cognisance, which is when you're kind of sitting there
Speaker 1: and you just feel this piece of knowledge drop into
Speaker 1: your head. One example I give is people who say
Speaker 1: they knew the queen was gonna die the day before
Speaker 1: she did, and it felt like this weird intuitive, oh
Speaker 1: my god, like mystical thing. And then there is clear audience,
Speaker 1: which is hearing short phrases, voices, sounds that feel like
Speaker 1: some kind of direct message. Obviously, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: overlap with that last one with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it's just how you hear your intuition when your intuition
Speaker 1: is at a normal, balanced level. Now some people are
Speaker 1: going to define intuition as a very spiritual or magical phenomenon.
Speaker 1: And until about twenty years ago, the scientific community would
Speaker 1: have probably agreed, and it would have told you that
Speaker 1: it was garbage and it was just mystical thinking. But
Speaker 1: more and more evidence is coming out the points to
Speaker 1: the fact that our gut instinct and our intuition has
Speaker 1: a very strong scientific basis, and it does occur on
Speaker 1: almost a cellular level, on a social level, a physical level,
Speaker 1: and a collective level as well. I personally have a
Speaker 1: deep belief in intuition. If that is not obvious, I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you about this crazy story that actually
Speaker 1: happened to me that felt like intuition at work, and
Speaker 1: probably even saved my life. So around five years ago,
Speaker 1: I was living in Canberra and it was around eleven
Speaker 1: pm at night, almost twelve, and me and my boyfriend
Speaker 1: at the time decided to go and get McDonald's, like
Speaker 1: a drive through McDonald's. I don't know why. I think
Speaker 1: we just were like we'd watched a movie. We were
Speaker 1: still awake. We really felt like, I'm honestly, that's just
Speaker 1: a silly detail. You don't need to know that. We
Speaker 1: go through this drive through, we pull out, and we
Speaker 1: pull into this like four way intersection with two going
Speaker 1: either way. We pull up to the light, there are
Speaker 1: no other cars around. We're listening to music, and the
Speaker 1: light for me to turn right at this intersection goes green,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there and I just don't go forward,
Speaker 1: and my boyfriend at the time looks at me and goes,
Speaker 1: what are you doing, Like why aren't you moving? And
Speaker 1: I kind of just looked at him and was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Right at that point, I turned back
Speaker 1: to the road and I went to go forward, and
Speaker 1: at that very moment, this car, going probably around one
Speaker 1: hundred kilometers an hour, ran the red light and would
Speaker 1: have completely hit us. It would have hit us and
Speaker 1: it probably would have killed us. And right behind it
Speaker 1: these three to four cop cars pull onto the road
Speaker 1: and chasing it, and we are just sitting in the
Speaker 1: car and I'm just like, holy crap. If I had
Speaker 1: pulled out onto that road, we would have died. We
Speaker 1: would have died. This car would have hit us directly
Speaker 1: where him and I were sitting, and it would have
Speaker 1: just been the end. And that's like we literally pulled
Speaker 1: over and were just like in shock, Like I cannot
Speaker 1: even explain that feeling of just being like wow. And
Speaker 1: later that then we called our friend. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what happened. I think we like texted our friends
Speaker 1: and we're like, you're not gonna believe what just happened.
Speaker 1: And they go on the news and they go into
Speaker 1: like our local news page and Canberra and there's a
Speaker 1: car that has been like in pursuit by the police,
Speaker 1: and an hour later like it's been basically it's a
Speaker 1: high speed chase. And I don't know what it was
Speaker 1: in that moment when you know, I'm in the car
Speaker 1: listening to music and the light turns green and I
Speaker 1: see it turn green and I did not go and
Speaker 1: some part of me says that was just intuition. The
Speaker 1: thing is, I'm quite a scientific person. I love the science,
Speaker 1: I love the evidence, and for a while I was
Speaker 1: really trying to find an answer, because how do we
Speaker 1: explain moments like that. We've all had a moment like that.
Speaker 1: There are a few theories as to what causes this
Speaker 1: intuition that stops us or tells us to go over
Speaker 1: as like a calling. The first explanation is obviously one
Speaker 1: of fate and destiny and mysticism and higher power controlling everything.
Speaker 1: Call it God, the universe hollah, some power is moving
Speaker 1: all these parts. Now, this one's hard to prove, obviously,
Speaker 1: because it's hard to prove the existence of something you
Speaker 1: can't see and that doesn't have a scientific measure to it.
Speaker 1: But that's one take on it. The psychology, though, says
Speaker 1: two things. Intuition is this emotionally charged, rapid unconscious process
Speaker 1: whereby our brain is basically using information that we've never
Speaker 1: acknowledged or seen before to influence our actions. So basically,
Speaker 1: when we look at the world, our brain is really
Speaker 1: good at just selecting what is important to us. Because
Speaker 1: we do have finite cognitive resources, it cannot process every
Speaker 1: single little thing in our environment at once and give
Speaker 1: all that information to us to consciously process all that
Speaker 1: information though it still exists and it's still being processed.
Speaker 1: You may not consciously have noticed the car speeding down
Speaker 1: towards you, but part of your brain did and told
Speaker 1: you to stop. You may not have consciously seen the
Speaker 1: suspicious shadow in the alleyway, some part of your brain
Speaker 1: did and it kind of cut over all the noise
Speaker 1: and said, don't go down there, don't go forward, don't
Speaker 1: do that thing. That's the first explanation. Basically, your unconscious
Speaker 1: mind noticing things quicker than you, faster than you, silently.
Speaker 1: The second explanation is based on learning and how our
Speaker 1: brain really predicts things based on experience and yeah, basically
Speaker 1: it learns from what we've been through before. So this
Speaker 1: is the theory that was put forward by the neuroscientist
Speaker 1: Joel Pearson. He runs a lab on neuroscience and intuition
Speaker 1: called Future Mind Labs at UNSW here in Sydney. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to explain this explanation the way he does,
Speaker 1: which is using your coffee shop. So you run a
Speaker 1: new coffee shop. You're let's say you're walking around London,
Speaker 1: you're walking around Brazil, you're walking around Tokyo, some city
Speaker 1: you've never been before, and you want to get a coffee,
Speaker 1: you want to get some lunch. Now, you've been to
Speaker 1: heaps of cafes before, and when you were in those environments,
Speaker 1: your brain processed all of these pieces of information, the temperature,
Speaker 1: the music, the coffee machine, how clean the floor was,
Speaker 1: the decor, how warm it was, And you've just basically
Speaker 1: learned what parts of an atmosphere or an environment are
Speaker 1: going to predict the kind of food and experience and
Speaker 1: coffee that you want based on all these learnings. So
Speaker 1: as you're looking for a cafe you're standing in the entrance,
Speaker 1: your intuition is applying those learnings to all this conscious
Speaker 1: information that's happening right now to help you make a
Speaker 1: decision based on a gut feeling. This is why you
Speaker 1: might have a gut instinct about a bad friend or
Speaker 1: that someone is lying to you. It's because you've probably
Speaker 1: encountered a situation before, and although you may not have
Speaker 1: picked up on some of the information that came with
Speaker 1: this situation, part of your brain did, and now it's
Speaker 1: pulling that information out of storage to help you make
Speaker 1: the best decision in this moment. Now, there is another
Speaker 1: component of intuition, and it's talked about a lot less,
Speaker 1: and it's this kind of ancient kind of knowledge, knowledge
Speaker 1: passed down through generations that feels like it's in our DNA,
Speaker 1: even in ourselves, Like you may not have encountered a
Speaker 1: situation before, but there is some human part of you
Speaker 1: that feels very familiar with it and knows how to
Speaker 1: act and some kind of deja vous. I honestly think
Speaker 1: it's because there's some ancestor some experience from your past
Speaker 1: that it's in your blood, it's in your bones, it's
Speaker 1: been passed down through you. You can call it spirit, you
Speaker 1: can call it whatever. I know this sounds very woo woo.
Speaker 1: It's an ancient human knowledge that informs how you see
Speaker 1: the world and informs your intuition and you're gut instinct.
Speaker 1: I want to tell another story, this time about my mum.
Speaker 1: When she was my age, she was traveling around the
Speaker 1: world doing fun, fabulous things, and she was in Indonesia.
Speaker 1: She was on a mountain that she knew was an
Speaker 1: active volcano and it hadn't exploded for a while. I
Speaker 1: think it was semi dormant. She's walking up this volcano,
Speaker 1: doing this hike, and she just gets this sense that
Speaker 1: this is going to erupt. Something's not right, and she
Speaker 1: runs down the mountain. She sprints down the mountain and
Speaker 1: it erupts like I don't know if it was the
Speaker 1: day later, it was after she got down the mountain,
Speaker 1: but within a very short period of time, the volcano
Speaker 1: had erupted. And from what I can remember of this story,
Speaker 1: no one was there with her, no one had told her.
Speaker 1: She just had this very human sense, and it was
Speaker 1: almost like some ancest to, some human person in her
Speaker 1: past had encountered this, and there was a knowledge there
Speaker 1: that was passed on. And I remember her telling me
Speaker 1: she felt like she needed to move and she needed
Speaker 1: to hustle, but she didn't feel anxious about the thought.
Speaker 1: She didn't feel like there was anything to do other
Speaker 1: than to act. She was very certain, And I think
Speaker 1: this is what intuition feels like. It feels very calm
Speaker 1: and self assured. There is no doubt, there is not
Speaker 1: a thousand possible outcomes or explanations running through your head
Speaker 1: the way that that you know. That's sometimes what happens
Speaker 1: with anxiety. You're sitting there, Oh, like this could happen,
Speaker 1: or this could happen, or this could happen. It's serving
Speaker 1: you up a thousand different possibilities with intuition. That's that's
Speaker 1: not the case. There's one explanation, one prediction. You feel
Speaker 1: it in your body. It is stable, it is certain,
Speaker 1: it is confident. Most people will also obviously say you
Speaker 1: can feel it in your stomach. That's the term gut instinct.
Speaker 1: That's where it comes from. Now, the science behind this
Speaker 1: sensation is very, very cool. Scientists don't call the stomach
Speaker 1: the second brain for no reason. There's very good reason,
Speaker 1: because there is a vast neural network of over one
Speaker 1: hundred million neurons lining your entire digestive system. And every
Speaker 1: single year, more and more evidence emerges that there is
Speaker 1: this bi directional communication pathway between the brain and the gut.
Speaker 1: In other words, you might feel your emotions or certain
Speaker 1: sensations in your stomach before you consciously process them. They're
Speaker 1: known by another name. They're called gut signals, and a
Speaker 1: twenty twenty paper looked at whether they could be trusted,
Speaker 1: and it did find that emotional stress and cues have
Speaker 1: an immediate impact on the gut in a way that
Speaker 1: we may be quicker to recognize than a passing thought
Speaker 1: or than any other kind of sensory information. That's what
Speaker 1: the gut instinct is. As to whether we can trust
Speaker 1: our intuition, I can't go into all the studies because
Speaker 1: there are so so many, and the answer is it
Speaker 1: really depends. It really depends. But by and large we
Speaker 1: do need this part of ourselves, this unconscious intelligence. A
Speaker 1: two thousand and six study that I read that looked
Speaker 1: at this found that people were better able to make
Speaker 1: a decision under like chaotis circumstances when they went with
Speaker 1: what they initially thought rather than those situations where they
Speaker 1: had time to really think about it, especially when we
Speaker 1: have more options. So, if we're thinking about intuition and
Speaker 1: a big life choice, especially one in our twenties, if
Speaker 1: you just applied reason and rationality to however many choices
Speaker 1: you have, you would not make a good decision because
Speaker 1: you would get too caught up in the data. There
Speaker 1: are certain moments like that one where you have to
Speaker 1: just trust what is being fed to you, what information
Speaker 1: that you may not be able to label is being
Speaker 1: told to you. That is helping you make a choice.
Speaker 1: I also think you know human emotion, and to some extent,
Speaker 1: human relationships aren't always properly represented in rational thought. There
Speaker 1: are things about human relationships that cannot be presented in
Speaker 1: facts or figures or pro cons lists. And so listening
Speaker 1: out for that emotional directive that you are being given
Speaker 1: and whatever direction you're being called to is really really important.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you end up confused, robotic, almost mathematical at times.
Speaker 1: The question now is how do we tap into that
Speaker 1: inner voice when sometimes it does just feel like anxiety.
Speaker 1: We spend a lot of time talking about both of
Speaker 1: those things. Let's put it together after this very short break. So,
Speaker 1: knowing what we know, now, why do we confuse intuition
Speaker 1: and anxiety. Well, we often confuse them because they feel
Speaker 1: the same and they elicit very similar thoughts and sensations.
Speaker 1: In particular, if you are someone who was already anxious,
Speaker 1: you are going to be hypervigilant to even the smallest
Speaker 1: cues or signs of danger or signs that you should
Speaker 1: or shouldn't be doing something, And so your brain is
Speaker 1: going to naturally apply a deeper meaning to things that
Speaker 1: sometimes is just fear. Sometimes it's just catastrophic thinking. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's just worry and we confuse those sensations for an
Speaker 1: intuitive thought. Here are some of the other reasons that
Speaker 1: we tend to get them confused. I think to start
Speaker 1: off with, they both often occur in response to uncertain situations,
Speaker 1: and so with both intuition and anxiety, they often are
Speaker 1: going to come up when there is some kind of
Speaker 1: unknown and that's something we never enjoy as humans, And
Speaker 1: because in that situation we're already stressed, it can be
Speaker 1: hard to tell the difference. They can both often feel
Speaker 1: a little bit irrational, like I don't know why I
Speaker 1: feel this way, I just do. In terms of anxiety,
Speaker 1: the reason you just feel this way is because your
Speaker 1: mind is, I don't know, just on high alert and
Speaker 1: dysregulated in terms of how you're processing fear. In terms
Speaker 1: of intuition, sometimes it's because you're just seeing something that
Speaker 1: your brain isn't consciously knowing is there. They also both
Speaker 1: originate from within us, even if it's different corners of
Speaker 1: the mind. If anxiety was all situation based or was
Speaker 1: just what someone else had to say, it would be
Speaker 1: very easy to discredit it. But because both of them
Speaker 1: intuition and anxiety are coming through some of the same channels,
Speaker 1: they can get kind of confused. They also, like I said,
Speaker 1: a listit some of the same physical sensations, specifically that
Speaker 1: gut signal or sensation for anxiety that can feel like nausea.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that feels the same as a gut instinct, so
Speaker 1: it's easily confused. They both also feel important to listen to.
Speaker 1: So as much as we kind of hate an anxious feeling,
Speaker 1: it is an important feeling and it's very hard for
Speaker 1: our brain to ignore it. The same with intuition. It's there,
Speaker 1: they're loud, and often they are directed towards something that
Speaker 1: feels emotionally salient to us. We're not going to feel
Speaker 1: intuitive or anxious about what bag to take to the
Speaker 1: gym or what pen to use. We're gonna feel anxious
Speaker 1: and intuitive about very profound big things like finances, relationships,
Speaker 1: life choices. So they sit in the same ecosystem, and finally,
Speaker 1: they're both trying to guide us to make a certain decision.
Speaker 1: Intuition wants us to make a good decision. Anxiety wants
Speaker 1: us to make the decision that keeps us safe. Either way,
Speaker 1: they're both working on our brain to kind of give
Speaker 1: it the best argument as to what path to take.
Speaker 1: We've talked about how they're similar, how do they differ.
Speaker 1: This is the real thing we want to know well.
Speaker 1: Where anxiety is urgent and rushed, and it will always
Speaker 1: make you feel like you need to do something immediately,
Speaker 1: like a bad boss with a bad way of time management.
Speaker 1: Intuition is going to let you take your time. Intuition
Speaker 1: will not push you. It will not rush you towards
Speaker 1: a decision, even if it's an important choice. Intuition I've
Speaker 1: found also feels remarkably calm. It's like this steady feeling
Speaker 1: in your whole body, this like real sense of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what I need to do. And sometimes you're
Speaker 1: gonn just like I can't explain it. I just know
Speaker 1: and it's not scary, it's just knowledge. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: anxiety tends to be very uncomfortable. There's a lot of restlessness,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of jitteriness, its movement, it's chaos, its energy.
Speaker 1: Like we said before, this is also no important and
Speaker 1: important distinction. Intuition is singular, anxiety is plural. Intuition will
Speaker 1: often give you one answer, one scenario, one hypothetical, whereas
Speaker 1: anxiety will give you several Intuition is also present focused,
Speaker 1: it's based on what is happening now, whilst anxiety is
Speaker 1: focused on the future, and it's very obsessive and it's
Speaker 1: based in fear, whereas intuition is based in freedom. I
Speaker 1: think the best way I can describe the difference is
Speaker 1: that we often confuse use anxiety as intuition all the time,
Speaker 1: but very rarely the other way around. We never think
Speaker 1: that intuition is just anxiety because intuition is so absolutely
Speaker 1: sure of itself and there's often no fear. I know
Speaker 1: this feels rather abstract, so I thought i'd give you
Speaker 1: a bit of a checklist. Say you are listening to
Speaker 1: this episode for a specific situation to you, one I
Speaker 1: probably don't know there's something coming up, though, some part
Speaker 1: of you is scared, some part of you wants the
Speaker 1: right answer. Some part of you doesn't know which feeling
Speaker 1: you're having right now to trust and which one to ignore.
Speaker 1: So I want to give you a checklist for whether
Speaker 1: the thought you're having is an intuitive thought or an
Speaker 1: anxious thought. To begin with, does the thought you're having
Speaker 1: start with? What if? If it does, it's an anxious thought,
Speaker 1: what if this happens? There's no what IF's with intuition. Secondly,
Speaker 1: how long have you been thinking about this hypothetical? If
Speaker 1: it's persistent and subtle, that's intuition. If it's just showed
Speaker 1: up today and it's coming in waves of fear and overthinking,
Speaker 1: that's anxiety. Does this thought limit or expand you? If
Speaker 1: it traps you, it's anxiety because anxiety really likes to
Speaker 1: keep things safe by keeping them the same. If it's intuition,
Speaker 1: it's going to expand you and guide you, even if
Speaker 1: it feels uncomfortable. And that's why we cannot rely on
Speaker 1: discomfort alone to tell whether a thought is intuitive or anxious. Now,
Speaker 1: does this thought push you more towards self trust or
Speaker 1: does it make you doubt yourself? More? Self trust? Intuition,
Speaker 1: self doubt, anxiety. Do you feel confident in this decision
Speaker 1: deep down? Or are you seeking constant reassurance? So? Are
Speaker 1: you going to friends, family, Reddit pages trying to tell
Speaker 1: is this the right decision? If is it not the
Speaker 1: right decision? If you feel confident deep down, its intuition.
Speaker 1: If you're needing reassurance, it's anxiety. If you sit quietly
Speaker 1: and you breathe, and you're all alone and you feel
Speaker 1: like you're trying to bring yourself peace. Does the thought
Speaker 1: go away? Does it fade when you relax. If that's
Speaker 1: the case, it's anxiety. If it's still there and it's steady,
Speaker 1: it's not causing you any harm. It's intuition. This is
Speaker 1: my checklist, and I want you to write these down.
Speaker 1: Remember that this episode is here for the next time
Speaker 1: you have a thought that you think is anxious, that
Speaker 1: you think is misleading, test it against this framework. I
Speaker 1: think if you're still struggling to delineate between these two emotions,
Speaker 1: the final way to really tell is that intuition is
Speaker 1: going to respond positively to action. An anxious thought will
Speaker 1: respond positively to slowing down. So if the thought gets
Speaker 1: louder the less you do, you have confused intuition with anxiety.
Speaker 1: If the thought gets louder, the more you try and
Speaker 1: change and escape, you've confused anxiety with intuition. That's really
Speaker 1: I know I've given you a lot of ways of
Speaker 1: telling this, but this is really the one. With all
Speaker 1: that in mind, how do we improve our ability to
Speaker 1: hear our inner voice and our inner diirective and what
Speaker 1: it wants from us. Matter of fact, how do we
Speaker 1: also improve our ability to tune out our anxiety and
Speaker 1: to stop it cutting over the intuitive frequency. The first
Speaker 1: thing I do when I really want to tap into
Speaker 1: what I truly want and I am thinking, is that
Speaker 1: I spend time in solitude. I take a step back
Speaker 1: from everything. I spend time by myself, particularly in nature.
Speaker 1: I find that firstly that my anxiety. I always say this,
Speaker 1: the best way to regulate your nervous system is to
Speaker 1: put it back into the environment. It was made to
Speaker 1: work in your nervous system, your stress response. It was
Speaker 1: made for the wild, it was made for this so
Speaker 1: called natural habitat. That's where it's going to be regulated best.
Speaker 1: So being outdoors helps with that. It also makes me
Speaker 1: more focused on what I truly want, so that solitude
Speaker 1: part is really really essential. I also think if you're
Speaker 1: trying to tap into your intuition spending more time alone,
Speaker 1: it's not just that it's a cure for anxiety in
Speaker 1: some way. It's also that it stops you from approval
Speaker 1: and opinion seeking. So that is often a symptom of
Speaker 1: someone who is quite anxious and quite obsessive in their thoughts.
Speaker 1: You're often asking people for their opinion constantly because you
Speaker 1: can't trust yourself. Being away from that temptation is really helpful.
Speaker 1: And I think when we are constantly looking for other
Speaker 1: people's validation of our decisions and what they think, we
Speaker 1: do cut ourself off from our self knowledge because our
Speaker 1: own thoughts, we start to question them in favor of
Speaker 1: what someone else thinks. And really, what do they know, Like,
Speaker 1: what do they know about what you feel? Probably not much.
Speaker 1: They're applying their own intuition about their life to your
Speaker 1: circumstances when your circumstances are probably entirely different. And there's
Speaker 1: this incredible study from twenty twenty three actually conducted in
Speaker 1: Australia that found those of us who spend more time alone,
Speaker 1: we are more self aware and we are more satisfied
Speaker 1: in terms of autonomy. Autonomy being our ability to make
Speaker 1: decisions for ourself and believe they are good decisions. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say small caveat here, you can't spend more
Speaker 1: than seventy five percent of your time alone. Another study
Speaker 1: kind of gave us that figure. Also another study from
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, So finding that balance between being able
Speaker 1: to appreciate solitude and I in a sense, but also
Speaker 1: not tip too far over the edge really important. The
Speaker 1: other way to strengthen your intuition is to be patient,
Speaker 1: don't always look for a sign, don't rush it. Rushing
Speaker 1: is an anxious game. That is anxiety's favorite game to play,
Speaker 1: and it will have you looking for signs where there
Speaker 1: aren't any, leading you to read too much into small things,
Speaker 1: leading you to make the wrong decisions. Basically, what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say is don't feel like you need to
Speaker 1: change everything at once, and that every discomfort is a problem.
Speaker 1: Sometimes discomfort it is growth. It is okay to sit
Speaker 1: in a period that feels strange and odd for a
Speaker 1: little while without feeling like it's indicating a problem. Let
Speaker 1: me give some examples of this. When you are in
Speaker 1: a new relationship, especially if you're in a new relationship
Speaker 1: where you've previous in an unhealthy one. Sometimes that's going
Speaker 1: to feel a little bit painful. There are these growing
Speaker 1: pains in a relationship. It doesn't mean that you should
Speaker 1: trust that discomfort solely. Another example is in a new job.
Speaker 1: You know I always say the first three months of
Speaker 1: a new job are really really hard. Doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: the wrong decision. What about like moving to a new city.
Speaker 1: That's another one. You're going to feel uncomfortable when you
Speaker 1: move to a new city. That discomfort does not mean
Speaker 1: that you necessarily have made the wrong decision. My rule
Speaker 1: is always the six month rule. If it's three months
Speaker 1: for a job, it's six months for a new city.
Speaker 1: If you still hate it, it's six months. Then you
Speaker 1: can say, oh, maybe I didn't trust my gut instinct.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just think that be patient with choices
Speaker 1: that you make just because they aren't working out right
Speaker 1: now doesn't mean that you were wrong. I would also say,
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction, notice patterns in past decisions, and
Speaker 1: so reflect on times when you made the wrong decision.
Speaker 1: You can arguably say, tang, I really made a wrong decision.
Speaker 1: Right before you made that decision, in the weeks, days,
Speaker 1: minutes before you made that decision, was there another decision
Speaker 1: calling you that you ignored. That was probably your gut instinct,
Speaker 1: That was probably your intuition. Remember that feeling, Remember it
Speaker 1: and apply it to the situations you're in now. Do
Speaker 1: you feel something similar at the moment, and try some
Speaker 1: trial and error. You know, sometimes the best way to
Speaker 1: get more in touch with your intuition is to make
Speaker 1: mistakes that prove to you what your intuition is not.
Speaker 1: Trial and error sucks, but sometimes if you feel strongly
Speaker 1: about something, you have to follow through with it, see
Speaker 1: what happens. And that's going to be the easiest way
Speaker 1: for you to tell what anxiety feels like for you
Speaker 1: versus what intuition and feels like for you. And if
Speaker 1: that feels very big and scary, you can start with
Speaker 1: very small, low stakes risks just to build confidence in
Speaker 1: your intuition by making minor intuitive decisions. So trying a
Speaker 1: new activity, if you feel called to talk to someone
Speaker 1: on the street, if you feel called to I don't know,
Speaker 1: have a connection with someone, do it. It's so low stakes,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's gonna be fine. Those kinds of
Speaker 1: things are a really great practice routine. They're really good
Speaker 1: training wheels. Now for managing your anxiety. This's a whole
Speaker 1: another ballgame, a whole nother pit of snakes. Like I said,
Speaker 1: we have an episode on this, I'm gonna leave it
Speaker 1: in the description. It's actually probably a really good episode
Speaker 1: to listen to right after this one. But rapid fire,
Speaker 1: how I address my anxiety when I feel like it's
Speaker 1: taking over. I create a fear versus reality list. What
Speaker 1: is a fear thought? What is a reality thought? I
Speaker 1: put them on separate sides. I repeat them to myself
Speaker 1: so that I can just reaffirm what I do know
Speaker 1: to be true. Challenge the what if thinking. Ask yourself,
Speaker 1: what if the best case scenario happened? What's the chances
Speaker 1: of that happening? No more, no less than the worst case.
Speaker 1: Talk to other people about the feelings that you're having.
Speaker 1: I would also say stop drinking. If you're going through
Speaker 1: a real anxious period and it's interrupting your ability to
Speaker 1: hear from your intuition, please stop drinking. We know that
Speaker 1: alcohol spikes anxiety by initially causing a very calming effect
Speaker 1: through gabber activity in the brain, but then as it
Speaker 1: wears off, the brain tries to rebalance those neurotransmitters with glutamate,
Speaker 1: which is a very anxious neurotransmitter slash hormone, causing us
Speaker 1: to feel my anxious Please stop drinking. Engage in some
Speaker 1: kind of movement. If I'm anxious and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: why does my intuition slash anxiety tell me this friend
Speaker 1: hates me. Why why do I suddenly believe I'm going
Speaker 1: to get evicted? Why do I believe this that I
Speaker 1: immediately dance, I shake, I sing, I do some kind
Speaker 1: of movement to dispel what is a physical reaction for me.
Speaker 1: And also get therapy. Get therapy. People talk about it
Speaker 1: a lot because it actually works, surprise, surprise. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: And so if you really want to tap into your intuition,
Speaker 1: sometimes you do have to clean out some of the garbage.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you do have to clean out some of the
Speaker 1: thought patterns that you have developed over time to protect
Speaker 1: yourself that actually are hurting you. All right, we're going
Speaker 1: to take a short break, but when we return, we've
Speaker 1: got some listener dilemmas to do with anxiety and intuition.
Speaker 1: Stay with us. So, my lovely listeners, if you are
Speaker 1: a loyal listener of the show, you have been here
Speaker 1: for a while, you will know that this is a
Speaker 1: relative new segment of the podcast. I'm just trialing it
Speaker 1: out for the next couple of episodes. I'm always down
Speaker 1: for your feedback. But so many of you would have
Speaker 1: questions after the episode had gone up, and I wish
Speaker 1: that I could have answered those questions in the actual episodes.
Speaker 1: So now I am giving you all the opportunity to
Speaker 1: ask me those specific questions dilemmas that you are having
Speaker 1: before the episode is so I can answer them for you.
Speaker 1: If you want to submit a question for an upcoming topic,
Speaker 1: just make sure you're following me at that Psychology podcast.
Speaker 1: We've got some really cool episodes coming up around confidence,
Speaker 1: around being a late bloomer, around parasocial relationships. I will
Speaker 1: be asking for your questions and your dilemmas. If you
Speaker 1: hate this segment, please actually let me know. I really
Speaker 1: want to hear it, because if you guys don't like it,
Speaker 1: it's going, it's going. It's going. It's gone. But I
Speaker 1: want to answer some of the questions that a lot
Speaker 1: of you kindly submit it today. Let's talk about this
Speaker 1: first question. Is there any such thing or any time
Speaker 1: when being led by anxiety is a good thing? The
Speaker 1: answer is yes. So anxiety causes distress and use stress
Speaker 1: U stress. It's spelled eu stres. It's also known as
Speaker 1: good stress, and it helps boost a lot of really
Speaker 1: great things, specifically our motivation and our focus. So there's
Speaker 1: this law called the yerx Dodson law and Basically, it
Speaker 1: says that anxiety up to a point actually helps improve
Speaker 1: our performance. Moderate levels of anxiety, of course, will help
Speaker 1: you better with studying, they help people with deadlines, but
Speaker 1: it's when we get to an excessive point that it
Speaker 1: really starts to kind of hurt us. So essentially, it's
Speaker 1: an important balance to have. Anxiety also helps indicate when
Speaker 1: something requires attention. I know there are a lot of
Speaker 1: like posts on TikTok and Instagram being like how I
Speaker 1: got rid of my anxiety. I cured my anxiety with exercise.
Speaker 1: I no longer feel anxious. That's probably not a good thing.
Speaker 1: You do need anxiety sometimes. Otherwise you would be just
Speaker 1: in a constant state of complete calm and normalcy, and
Speaker 1: even when stressful things happened, you wouldn't respond to them.
Speaker 1: It's important to feel that way, Like think about your
Speaker 1: wedding day, or like some really important event where you
Speaker 1: feel a deep emotional sensation in response to it. You
Speaker 1: feel nervous, you feel scared, you feel excited. All of
Speaker 1: that is possible because of anxiety. So yes, there is
Speaker 1: some level that is important. Question number two. My gut
Speaker 1: says to leave my boyfriend, but my anxious self wonders
Speaker 1: if it's just self sabotage. This is just one person's question,
Speaker 1: but the amount of times I got something very similar
Speaker 1: in my DMS was incredible. It's something that a lot
Speaker 1: of you are obviously quite worried about, and I get it.
Speaker 1: I really get it, because you might be dating someone really,
Speaker 1: really nice and wonderful, but you're still so young, and
Speaker 1: you worry is this really what's right for me? You
Speaker 1: can't tell whether you're going to regret it, or whether
Speaker 1: this is really a sign that you need to move
Speaker 1: on you don't want to waste their time. What I'm
Speaker 1: basically describing right here is relationship anxiety or relationship OCD.
Speaker 1: Don't let the term fool you. It has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with how we typically see OCD. Essentially, it's this
Speaker 1: real sense of hypervigilance towards your relationship, whereby you're constantly
Speaker 1: looking for things that could go wrong, not because they're
Speaker 1: a bad person, but because you're worried about making the
Speaker 1: wrong choice. It sounds like that's something that you may
Speaker 1: be battling with. On the other hand, it may be
Speaker 1: a deeper sign you've noticed something about who you two
Speaker 1: are as a couple. Maybe not consciously yet, but you're
Speaker 1: feeling it first in your gut. Here's what I would
Speaker 1: say to you. If you're thinking about what it would
Speaker 1: look like to leave him more than you are thinking
Speaker 1: about your future with him, it's probably not the right relationship.
Speaker 1: The other question I would ask you is if you
Speaker 1: knew you would find love again soon, if you knew
Speaker 1: that there was someone else out there who would love
Speaker 1: you as much as this person loves you, now, would
Speaker 1: you leave? Is this just a safe place to land?
Speaker 1: Is this just an in the meantime relationship? I think
Speaker 1: be really, really honest with yourself. Also acknowledge, and some
Speaker 1: people might not be happy with me for saying this,
Speaker 1: but you don't need to make a decision right now.
Speaker 1: Like I said, intuition gives you time. Anxiety wants you
Speaker 1: to make a decision right now. Relationships naturally go through
Speaker 1: ebbs and flows and hard points and great points. It
Speaker 1: might just be that you're in a bit of a
Speaker 1: rat right now. I wouldn't want you to give up
Speaker 1: a really amazing relationship because you've been sold this idea
Speaker 1: that couples can never have low points. So that's my
Speaker 1: advice on that one question. Number three asked over on Instagram.
Speaker 1: When do you know if you should push through a
Speaker 1: comfort zone or if it's actually just unsafe? Good question.
Speaker 1: It's hard to tell. My natural desire is to always
Speaker 1: push through. I think that discomfort is something that we
Speaker 1: as humans are not good at managing, especially in a
Speaker 1: world where we don't have to be that uncomfortable if
Speaker 1: we don't want to be, you know, we truly don't.
Speaker 1: We can be warm at all times, most of us,
Speaker 1: thank gosh, can have food in our belly at all times.
Speaker 1: We don't experience extreme discomfort anymore. Sometimes a little bit
Speaker 1: of discomfort is a good thing in this situation, unless
Speaker 1: you can point to evidence that this is actually going
Speaker 1: to be an unsafe thing. So can you see examples
Speaker 1: of it? I think about this with traveling. Are there
Speaker 1: stories of people being kidnapped in the country you're going to?
Speaker 1: Are there stories of or I don't know, Google reviews
Speaker 1: that the zipline you're gonna do is a little bit dangerous.
Speaker 1: It's important not to be arrogant. Just because we are
Speaker 1: trusting our intuition doesn't mean that we ignore anxiety at
Speaker 1: all points. It is still an important resource. So when
Speaker 1: you're feeling like, there is something that's holding you back,
Speaker 1: and you think that it's because it's unsafe. Investigate the
Speaker 1: evidence for that thing. Take a couple of minutes to
Speaker 1: walk yourself back from the situation and see it more clearly.
Speaker 1: I also would say, do things to make whatever you're
Speaker 1: going through feel more safe, but still keep going. So
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of like what you might be
Speaker 1: talking about. Say it's your career, it feels uncomfortable, you
Speaker 1: think that that's a sign that you're doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: Try and make ways to make your career the way
Speaker 1: that you're pushing it more comfortable. So try and find
Speaker 1: different income streams to keep yourself financially stable. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: the source of the discomfort whilst still pushing forward. I
Speaker 1: think that's like a really great way to say it. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, people didn't stop building skyscrapers because it was
Speaker 1: unsafe or uncomfortable. They kept building them, and they built
Speaker 1: them with safety measures. I think you can do the
Speaker 1: same in your life. I don't know why I just
Speaker 1: suddenly used a construction metaphor. I think that's the first
Speaker 1: time that's ever happened during this podcast. So whoever's question
Speaker 1: that is you should feel very privileged. All right. Final question,
Speaker 1: I get visceral morning scaries when I wake up. Is
Speaker 1: it my body trying to tell me something? This is
Speaker 1: a great question. It's a great question because I get
Speaker 1: this a lot. I guess morning scaries probably like five
Speaker 1: days a week. In terms of whether it's trying to
Speaker 1: tell you something like about your future or about your
Speaker 1: life in a mystical way, I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: think what you're probably experiencing is an elevated cordisol awakening response.
Speaker 1: So that's morning anxiety. Basically, when you wake up. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we can have this huge surge in our stress hormone cortisol.
Speaker 1: It's meant to help us just be alive and awake
Speaker 1: to the world. When that's just regulated, it can actually
Speaker 1: go too far the other way and make us quite anxious.
Speaker 1: It's important not to read too much into it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I think we can have those, again, very visceral emotional
Speaker 1: responses and say that's a sign something's wrong. I have cancer,
Speaker 1: someone's gonna die. No. I think that there's often the
Speaker 1: simplest response is the best one. Focus on your sleep hygiene,
Speaker 1: focus on trying to bring down your cortisol levels. And
Speaker 1: your stress response before before going to bed and after
Speaker 1: waking up. So no phone in your bedroom. You have
Speaker 1: no idea what a bright blue light in your face
Speaker 1: before you go to bed and right after you wake
Speaker 1: up does to your stress response and your circadian rhythm,
Speaker 1: So try and control that. Try not to have any
Speaker 1: bright lights in the bedroom, and also review your alarm schedule,
Speaker 1: so it's actually best to wake up naturally at the
Speaker 1: end of a full sleep cycle. If your alarm is
Speaker 1: like waking you up at like six hours and fifty
Speaker 1: five minutes, maybe do it for like seven and a
Speaker 1: half hours and try and go to bed earlier or
Speaker 1: get that sleep in. Because if you're waking up in
Speaker 1: the middle of a sleep schedule, you're waking up in
Speaker 1: the middle of a dream, you're waking up in the
Speaker 1: middle of rem sleep, you are going to be more anxious.
Speaker 1: So again, simplest solution is probably the best one. I
Speaker 1: don't think that this is a sign of anything. You're
Speaker 1: trying to tell you something other than that your sleep
Speaker 1: patterns maybe just a little bit off. And if it
Speaker 1: keeps happening, go and see a doctor. They have these
Speaker 1: really cool sleep studies right now and see feeling it
Speaker 1: in other areas of your life. If you're not feeling
Speaker 1: it in other areas of your life, I do think
Speaker 1: it's just linked back to what this is. I think
Speaker 1: that is all the questions that I have for today.
Speaker 1: I'm just reviewing my notes and it looks like that
Speaker 1: is the case. A long episode. If you have made
Speaker 1: it this far, you know the deal. A special emoji
Speaker 1: coming your way. I want you to leave an emoji
Speaker 1: that best represents to you what intuition feels like. What
Speaker 1: does it feel like in your body? What does it
Speaker 1: feel like in your soul, in your limbs, in your brain.
Speaker 1: If you've made it that far, this far, I mean,
Speaker 1: let me know in the comments, using that little sneaky sign.
Speaker 1: As always, I want to thank you for listening. I
Speaker 1: really loved this episode. Sometimes you just make an episode
Speaker 1: and you think fuck. Sorry to swear, but like fuck,
Speaker 1: I really like this episode. I really like this episode,
Speaker 1: So appreciate you listening this far. Make sure that you
Speaker 1: are following me on Instagram. At that Psychology podcast, we
Speaker 1: are doing more like listener questions, So if you want
Speaker 1: to get involved in some upcoming episodes, that's a great
Speaker 1: way to do it. Also, If you feel like there
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Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. I would love to
Speaker 1: see more people listening, more people following, more people giving
Speaker 1: us a five star review if you feel cold to
Speaker 1: do so, but thanks again, thanks for coming along with
Speaker 1: me on this really fun episode ride. Until next time,
Speaker 1: stay safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself, and we
Speaker 1: will talk very very soon.